LIP External Colloquium: Vanessa Teckentrup, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland - "Understanding neural and behavioural dynamics in daily life: Insights from microlongitudinal and neurostimulation approaches"
- Date: May 13, 2026
- Time: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Vanessa Teckentrup, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
- Location: Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin
- Room: Small Conference Room
- Host: LIP
- Contact: seklindenberger@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
- Topic: Lectures
LIP External Colloquium Vanessa Teckentrup, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, will present:
„Understanding neural and behavioural dynamics in daily life: Insights from microlongitudinal and neurostimulation approaches“
Abstract:
Individual behaviour fluctuates over time and across contexts. Understanding the mechanisms that drive these differences has been challenging though: many studies employ cross-sectional designs which do not allow to arbitrate between cause and effect. At the same time, longitudinal designs, especially when cognitive tasks are included, can place a substantial burden on participants that limits whom we can test, when we can test them and how often. One promising way of addressing these problems are ecological momentary assessments (EMA) in which participants can complete common, well validated measures such as (gamified) cognitive tests and (clinical) questionnaires repeatedly on their smartphones while they go about their daily life. Passive measures allow for assessments without active engagement of participants and neurostimulation approaches can further enrich the data through causal perturbations of within-person dynamics. In this talk, I will present work that uses time-series data from smartphone-based EMA studies with a combined N of over 1,000 participants, novel approaches such as a passive measure of cognitive performance, and non-invasive brain stimulation to show how rich within-individual dynamics can help us understand temporal precedence, arbitrate between competing mechanistic accounts and, ultimately, contribute to finding causation among the correlation.
„Understanding neural and behavioural dynamics in daily life: Insights from microlongitudinal and neurostimulation approaches“
Abstract:
Individual behaviour fluctuates over time and across contexts. Understanding the mechanisms that drive these differences has been challenging though: many studies employ cross-sectional designs which do not allow to arbitrate between cause and effect. At the same time, longitudinal designs, especially when cognitive tasks are included, can place a substantial burden on participants that limits whom we can test, when we can test them and how often. One promising way of addressing these problems are ecological momentary assessments (EMA) in which participants can complete common, well validated measures such as (gamified) cognitive tests and (clinical) questionnaires repeatedly on their smartphones while they go about their daily life. Passive measures allow for assessments without active engagement of participants and neurostimulation approaches can further enrich the data through causal perturbations of within-person dynamics. In this talk, I will present work that uses time-series data from smartphone-based EMA studies with a combined N of over 1,000 participants, novel approaches such as a passive measure of cognitive performance, and non-invasive brain stimulation to show how rich within-individual dynamics can help us understand temporal precedence, arbitrate between competing mechanistic accounts and, ultimately, contribute to finding causation among the correlation.